this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2024
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This is cool in theory, but kind of annoying if you are trying to modify the roll with something like Favored by the Gods from Divine Soul Sorcerer that specifically can activate if you fail the roll.
You add an additional 2d4 to your attack/save that fails.
I’m not sure if ANY other dice modifications work after knowing failure, but I know this one does. I know when I play divine souls I always like to save it for those random Int/Wis saves that’ll get ya.
It might work like how my table handles the shield spell but in reverse. For example....
DM rolls attack against Pat's Tiefling Wizard named Tim.
DM: I am rolling the goblin's attack. Pat, what's Tim's AC?
Pat: 15.
DM rolls a 16. Does not tell anyone.
DM: Okay, the goblin hits you. I know you have at least one possible reaction, what does Tim do?
Pat: Tim casts shield! His AC is now 20.
DM: The attack misses!
DM then describes to the Party how the goblin arrow slings towards Tim, stopping only when it gets stuck in a last second distortion of abjuration magics.
The ability Favored by the Gods can ONLY activate if you fail the save/attack roll. Here’s the RAW.
So I get that yes I wouldn’t know the number I would fail by (rolling a 2 vs DC 20 or rolling a 15 vs DC20) but this ability would never be useful for Wis saves. Which feels bad.
I do like that shield method, and have used it for shield and counterspell in past games.
So you pitch the die in the jar and tell the dm "this ability procs if I fail."
Still worse, since you don't know how low you rolled. If you get a 11 on an attack and miss, but you have a bardic inspiration and you know a 14 hit last round, you can safely assume that your chance of success is reasonable, while the inspiration would be wasted if you rolled 7. It just takes away from the strategic nature of the game.
Well, yes, more precise information is always going to make your decisions easier, so of course less makes it harder. That's not necessarily a bad thing though; perhaps your DM is just running the kind of game where you need to make those calls based off something diagetic to the game, like their combat descriptions ("You shoot the orc square in the chest but the arrow shatters harmlessly on his armor!") or monster research or something. Or perhaps it's the kind of game that thrives on drama, and you just gotta take your shots sometimes and let the dice fall where they may.
And yeah, theoretically it feels bad to waste a buff on an enemy you'd never be able to actually hit, but because you don't know the numbers, you don't know you could never hit. You're faced with a big scary monster, you try to hit it and can't, you run away. The arc of that encounter is the same regardless of which abilities you used. It only becomes relevant if the DM decides to hit you with another encounter, which presumably they only do if they think your lacking-that-ability would make for another exciting narrative moment. In which case, you'd only be screwing yourself out of that dramatic moment if you'd conserved your ability. It all just depends on what kind of game you're at, whether it prioritizes the gamist mechanical rewards or the narratavist dramatic rewards.
Likewise, sometimes you're going to "waste" your buff on some overkill, but you won't know that either; you'll simply be told "Bardman McBardo's inspiring music gives you the vigor you need to waste that guy" and get to feel good about winning your encounter. The emotions average out.
Yeah. But I'm really not a big fan of that. The strategic nature is a part of DnD. If you remove that you end up making it less engaging, since you just shoot sh*t into the abyss, hoping it might do something, or not. Thats not particularly fun to me. Not knowing things is interesting, because you can figure them out, or have to plan and think to work around what you know and don't know.
It just feels... pointless if you never understand what's going on and also have no way of figuring it out. You just go somewhere vague, do something vague and accomplish something vague.
That may be fun for some people but its not what DnD was designed for or what I hope to get out of my games. Thats why I also don't recommend using it in every game as a general rule.
Different strokes for different folks. And I'd be very careful about using assumptions of "what DnD was designed for" as a guide for how everyone ought to play now. To quote Terry Pratchett by way of Captain Carrot, "Gold and muck come out of the same shaft." It's more important to understand what kinds of fun your game can deliver on, and how, so that you can tune it for the maximum enjoyment of your table, than it is to determine in the abstract how it "should" be played.
Right. I correct: It’s not what 5e is best used for.
For the rest: That’s what I’m saying. From what I picked up (personal opinion) people really don’t like it when they don’t know what’s going on. But each their own. If your table is happy with it, go for it. I’m just advising against using it as a general rule, because some people don’t have much fun when the game goes this way.
I really don't like this, since it makes shield a blind shot, for the chance of making an attack miss. Wich is not a big deal for characters with high AC (since +5 is enough to make almost all attacks, that would otherwise hit, miss instead), but for characters with low AC it is. So the nerf doesn't really work well.
Besides: It makes it even harder to do something I really like: figure out things about the monster by ,,reading" their roles and thus adapting my characters strategy.
And lastly it makes the PCs feel... babysitted, since the DM does not seem to trust them and just plays the whole thing for them. (Why even bother rolling any check yourself if the DM can just do it all the time?)
...there are many feature + ability mechanics contingent upon open rolls...the game's designed around that assumption: rolls are open, modifiers can be kept secret as the DM determines success or failure...
...if DMs want to roll secret checks for events beyond characters' perception, the proper approach is to invert the roll and do a passive check instead...
Only problem I can see with that is, that passive scores take away from the randomness attributed to DnD but I generally agree with you. I also don't like rolling checks for my players.
...nonono, passive scores shouldn't be automatic success or failure: you invert the roll...
...say you want to know whether a party detects traps as they prowl through the dungeon: you subtract twelve from the trap DC, use that as its modifier, and add it to a secret D20 roll which you compare with everyone's passive perception to determine whether the trap successfully avoids detection...
...as long as you properly account for all applicable modifiers, you can do the same thing for any secret ability check or saving throw, or for a single roll to circumvent the party dogpiling a group check...
Hm. That could work. But it would be quite tedious.
Also: why 12 and not 8? Doesn’t a DC calculate 8+prof+ability?
...subtracting twelve maintains the same odds with ties 'succeeding' for the rolling adversary; some DMs instead subtract eleven and flip ties for the PC to always win, which is mathematically identical, but then you have to keep track of flipping tie-resolution back-and-forth depending upon who's rolling...
Perception +6, Trap DC 14 = Passive Perception 16, Trap +2
(both have the same 65% chance of detection, 35% chance of staying hidden)
...it becomes a pretty trivial exercise to invert any roll after you've done it once or twice...
i mean, can't the DM just tell you it failed and apply that?
Nah. The whole point of the bottle method is so the player doesn’t know if it failed or succeeded.